she is hated even in our children, that know but the grounds of religion, to whom Christ hath shined by the evidences of his truth, that have the Spirit of God in them. They hate those impostures, those abuses of Christian religion, with which this beast hath deluded the Christian world, which shews that they have a contrary spirit to the Spirit of God. And indeed so they have; for, besides their own base government, they maintain the corruptions of men, feeding the pride and vanity of men's natures with outward, formal, empty things; so that the very weak ones, even children, now they hate the whore, hate her impostures, hate her cruelty, hate her lying, and all.

I see the time is past: I can go no further, but will draw to an end, only a little to stir us up. Shall God then reveal and discover this painted strumpet, this bawd, and shall we labour to conceal her ill? shall we daub, shall we make her better than she is? Shall we hinder God's purpose ? God's word is, that she shall be revealed; the princes shall hate her, and consume her with fire. Let every one of our purposes help God's purpose, and providence, and decree in this point. That this shall be, it is God's purpose; and whosoever stops it, certainly they bring the judgment of God upon them. Those that would rear up Jericho again, we know what befell them; and they that rear up Rome, that begins now to be discovered, they bring the judgment of God upon them. God will perform this as well as he performed the other. As he put it into the hearts of these kings to betray their kingdoms to the beast, so he will put it into their hearts to hate the whore.

Now that we may hate her, let every one labour in his place: ministers in their place to lay open their impostures, their cozenings, and all their filthiness, whereby they deceive the people; magistrates in their place to countenance the ministers, to see the laws executed as they may. These that through ignorance are seduced, that are not Jesuited, for there is no hope of them; but others, their persons many times in the policy of state may have favour, but not their religion.

Let us all take heed that we grow in knowledge: let us labour to make more of the gospel of Christ. The more Christ appears in glory, the more antichrist will appear in shame. Let us labour by prayer, and not give God over by prayer, to plant the love of the truth in our hearts, to entertain the truth with love, to value it according to the respect it deserves at our hands, and let us labour to be moulded into that truth, to obey it; else, though we have it, yet if we do not love it, if we be not transformed into it, though our wits and parts be never so great, we may be seduced to error. God gave over these kings, men of great place and of great parts, —because they did not love the truth,—to believe lies.

My purpose was to have shewed the danger, if we do not further God's purpose in discovering this wicked antichrist: a state wherein the devil, the dragon, is effectual, and this book wondrously sets down the danger. It is another manner of danger now to relapse, and to apostatize, after the appearing of the glorious gospel of Christ, than it was a hundred years ago under darkness; and we know it to be so. Of all the judgments in this world it is the greatest for God to give up a man to decay in his love to the truth, to affect* this cursed religion, that the sentence of God hath passed upon, and it must be fulfilled, That they shall hate the whore, and burn her with fire, that she shall be left desolate and naked.'

But you may object. Alas! how is that likely to be, when we see now * That is, 'love,' ' choose.'-G.

what strength the beast hath gotten, and how he ruffleth in the world at this time; how he triumpheth and trampleth the poor church under his feet? Well, it is but a living before death. Undoubtedly Babylon is fallen, it is fallen,' saith John in his time, Rev. xiv. 8; that is, it is as sure to fall as if it had fallen already. The word of God hath said 80. The power of man cannot hinder it. He hath put it into the heads and hearts of the kings to betray their kingdoms; he shall also put it into their hearts and heads to hate and burn the whore with fire at the last. It must be so. The angel said it was done, as if it were done already. It is as sure as if it were done. Therefore let us never take scandal at the flourishing state of the enemies of the church abroad; let us never dislike our religion for that. Babylon is fallen. The time will come when it shall be done. Heaven hath concluded it, and earth cannot hinder it; no, nor hell neither: God hath said it, and shall not he do it? It is the word of him that is Lord of his word; because he is Lord of hosts, and Lord of the creatures. It is the word of him that is Lord of lords, that is Lord of heaven and earth, Lord of all things. He hath said that Babylon is fallen; and therefore it must be so, he being Governor and Lord of all things, and of his word too, that can make all things prove serviceable to his purpose. Let us comfort ourselves, therefore, as if it were present, and not take offence at the state of the beast, and the whore's flourishing, but present him to yourselves as he is set out in the text. See him growing, see him rising, see him decaying, and at last see him cast into the bottomless pit, to burn in the lake of fire for ever. It is, you see, the word of God from heaven, that he is fallen, and cast into the earth as a millstone, and shall never rise again. He shall never quicken* again. Heathen Rome was quickened by papal Rome: the pope quickened the former beast; but there shall never be beast after this Rome, and therefore he is said in this chapter, 'to go into destruction;' that is, he, and his state, and all without repentance, shall so go into destruction, that there shall never be other beast.

And that that shall help this destruction forward, shall be the course that themselves take. God as he hath decreed their destruction, so he hath appointed that their own plots, which they have devised for their own maintenance, shall turn to their confusion. Do you not think that the ruin of the pope will be by the Jesuits, who are grown, by their pressing themselves, and by their pragmatical meddling into princes' affairs, by their drawing and assuming all business to themselves, and by their striving and bringing all to their profession, to such hatred of the world, that even these means, which they themselves take, will be the means of the overthrow and downfall of popery? As the counsel of Ahithophel was the means to infatuate him, so their own courses will cause their own overthrow.

In the powder treason, they thought they had been made for ever, but God turned their wickedness upon their own heads. And now in these later times we may see that God takes his cause into his own hands; and you know who spake it by observation, Haman's wife, 'If thou begin to fall, thou shalt not prevail, but shalt surely fall before him,' Esther vi. 13. So if God take the matter into his own hands, as he hath done already, let them fear. For they shall surely fall and not prevail, until he hath wrought his work in Sion; until he hath thoroughly purged his church, they shall prevail. There is a little time allotted them, but it is nothing. Let us see by the eye of faith what this book saith of them, that they shall be * 'That is, 'live,' — 'be made aliye.'—G.

destroyed; and let us look on the courses they themselves take which will cause their destruction. Was there ever anything that weakened popery so much as this desperate attempt that we now celebrate this day? Indeed, if we go to an ignorant papist, and tell him what doctrine they teach, and what upholds their doctrine, tell him of the powder treason, ask him concerning the traitors, he will mince the matter, Oh, they were unfortunate gentlemen, &c. But how did Sixtus Quintus mince the matter when they had success in the massacre in France; when many thousands of people were slain against the law, slain under pretence of being married and bidden to a marriage? (j) He was so far from disallowing the act, as that he caused it to be pictured in his palace. So if these had achieved this, they had not been unfortunate gentlemen; they had been made, they had been sainted, as some of them are, St Garnet! St Devil!* If the devil himself will help them, and further popery, he shall be sainted; and if they be never so base, yet for their rebellion and destruction of kings, they shall be sainted by them. Will not this provoke men to hate the beast and the whore, to make her desolate and naked, and to eat her flesh, and to burn her with fire ?

Well, the time is past, I cannot finish the text as I thought to have done. To speak to the particular occasion I need not, it is yet fresh. And what should we speak of the gunpowder treason? The Jesuits and priests, having the devil for their midwife, they are big of such like plots; hell, Rome, and Satan, and the Jesuits, those frogs of the bottomless pit, they are full of devising such attempts. But I rather thought to speak against popery, against the beast and her religion at this time, than rhetorically to amplify that act of theirs, when indeed we are ready to have a new one continually, for they are always plotting and devising, I mean those Jesuits. Our comfort is to look to the Scripture, to look here what shall be the end of these frogs and of the beast. Ere long they shall be cast into the burning lake. Let us bless God that we live under this government, of so gracious a prince, that hath more weakened the pope by his learned writings, that ever any prince did.† So much for this time.

* Cf. note ooo, Vol. II. page 535.—G.

† Cf. note g, page 534.—G.

NOTES.

(a) P. 520.-'Kings must kiss that . . . as they did Heliodorus.' Query, the private secretary of the Emperor Hadrian, and himself subsequently prefect of Egypt? Sibbes's name of 'emperor' would make it seem so: but the trait would better suit the haughty Heliodorus, author of the famous romance at the end of which he has proudly told that he was of the family of priests of the Syrian god of the sun (Τῶν ἀφ' 'Ηλίου γένος).

(b) P. 520.—The apostles, when they returned from preaching.' This is a singular slip on the part of Sibbes. It was Jesus who thus 'saw Satan 'fall,' whatever the mysterious words may mean. The apostles told how the devils' had been subject to them. Probably this was running in Sibbes's mind at the time. Cf. Luke x. 18, et seq.

(c) P. 521.—' As Sixtus Quintus,' &c. The murderer of Henry III. (on August 1st 1589) was Jacques Clement, a Dominican friar. In Henry III. the House of Valois became extinct. By the 'bloody massacre' is no doubt intended that of St Bartholomew. The papal approbation, if we may not say exultation, on both occasions is a commonplace of history.

(d) P. 522.—' And as a man, it is Luther's comparison, that moves a horse. The 'comparison is common to various of the early Fathers, e. g. Augustine and Basil, also Lombard, as well as Luther. Dr John Boys has worked it in very well, with much additional lore, in shewing how the Spirit is said to lead in temptation. Cf. Works, p. 284 (1629).

(e) P. 528.—'St Augustine, in the unfolding of this point, of the providence of God in evil.' See the reference to Boys in previous note (d). The reconciliation often recurs in Augustine.

(ƒ) P. 525.—' It was a good prayer of the ancient church, Oh God, from whom all holy desires and all good counsels do proceed,' &c. One of the memorabilia of the Book of Common Prayer.

(g) P. 527.—' His majesty, who, if ever prince did, doth vindicate himself.' Sibbes seems, from this and other tributes, to have held a high opinion of James I. (VI. of Scotland). Let this be placed against more modern depreciations.

(h) P. 527.—' Kings they draw their kingdoms after them.' Probably the author was thinking of Horace's line

Quicquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi.'

(i) P. 528.—' Consecrated grains.' Query, the 'wafer' of the host?

() P. 588.-'Sixtus Quintus.' Tillemont has pronounced this pope 'the most extraordinary man of his time (1585). Sibbes would seem to refer to the great massacre on the 'Festival' of St Bartholomew, Aug. 24. 1572; but the then reigning pope was Gregory XIII. Cf. note c supra.

G.

THE CHURCH'S ECHO.*

And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.-REV. XXII. 17.

THIS book of the Revelation is an history of the state of the church, from the first coming of Christ to his second coming.

These two last chapters set down the glorious condition of the church, in the latter end of the world, and as it shall be in the consummation of all things, when the present state of things shall determine* in the 'second coming' of Christ. For howsoever, no doubt but there is set down the glorious condition of the church in this world in part, yet the desire of the church rests not in any condition here, therefore it is carried to the consummation and perfection of all. There shall be a kind of new world at the conversion of the Jews; but when the church is under that blessed condition, yet it is under desires still of farther perfection, till an end be made of all things. Therefore this saying here, 'Come,' hath reference to the future state of the church. All the desires of the church are restless till the consummation of all things in the latter coming of Christ. It carries all before it in a desire come, Lord,' therefore to call the Jews; come, Lord,' to confound antichrist, which must be before that. For the Jews will never come in till the scandal† of idolatry be removed, and when all this is fulfilled, then come, Lord,' to make an end of this sinful world.

As it is with a river, it carries all before it, till it discharge itself into the ocean, where it is swallowed up, so it is with the desires of a Christian. They carry all in the mean time, between heaven and them, in a stream, and never rest till they be swallowed in heaven itself, and the 'second coming' of Christ to finish all things; and then is the period of all happiness, and the accomplishment of all promises, when Christ shall come to be glorious in his saints,' 2 Thes. i. 10.

* 'The Church's Echo' forms one of the sermons included in the Beams of Divine Light' (4to, 1639). Its separate title-page is as follows:-'The Chvrches Eccho. In one Sermon. By The late learned and reverend Divine, Rich. Sibbs: Doctor in Divinitie, Mr of Katherine Hall in Cambridge, and sometimes Preacher at GrayesInne. Isay 64. 1. Oh that thou wouldst rent the heavens and come downe, that the Mountaines might flow downe at thy presence. London, Printed by E. P for Nicholas Bourne, and Rapha Harford, 1638.'

* That is, 'end.'-G.

† That is, 'stumbling-block.'-G.

G.